^.; 










^^- 



*/*■ 




lif^^ 



^..Iv-,:^'. 



W rv 



* #,.v, 



my 



If^^^. 



Mzt 



NATURE'S Testimony 



TO 



NATURE'S God. 



FOUR SERMONS, PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OF THE 
NATIVITY, PHILADELPHIA. 



BY 

Wm/NEWTON, 

RECTOR. 



[P«blis^eb bg |lequBst.] 




PHILADELPHIA: 4 
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

624, 626 & 628 MARKET STREET. 
1873- 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




J. FAGAN & SON, 
STEREOTYPE FOUNDERS, 

PHILADELPHIA. ^^tJ 
^y-O ^i>^ 




To THE Congregation 

OF 

The Church of the Nativity, 
These Sermons 

ARE 

Affectionately Dedicated 

BY 

Thejr Pastor.- 




'f 





|HESE Sermons arose from a felt want 
^i^ of the times. They were preached 
without manuscript, and were writ- 
ten out after their dehvery The exact 
order of thought and illustration — and, in 
most instances, the precise form of expres- 
sion — is here preserved. The Sermons 
are, on the printed page, pretty much as 
they came from my lips. 

Members of the Church and Congrega- 
tion, to whose judgment I am accustomed 
to defer, thought, that as they did good to 
the congregation reached by the voice, 
they would be equally beneficial to the 
larger congregation reached by the Press. 
Therefore they are here 

Philadelphia, April 30. 




I. 

The Uniformity of the Laws of Nature. 



II. 

The Apparent Exceptions to that Uniformity. 

IIL 

Man as a Supernatural Being. 



IV. 
Prayer in its Relation to Natural Law. 




IX 




NATURE'S TESTIMONY 



NATURE'S GOD. 



o>©=co 



SERMON I. 



UNIFORMITY OF THE LAWS OF NATURE. 



^^HERE IS, perhaps, no more striking- 
wis declaration, than that of the Apostle 
^^^ James, ''There is Oiie Law-giver!'' 
It opens before us a field of unlimited ex- 
tent. It ranges through the world of Mat- 
ter, and finds all its variety and beauty and 
grandeur the result of His action. 

It enters the world of Spirit, and finds 
that, too, subject to His sway. The '' One 
Law-giver " has to do with both. He sets 



II 



12 NATUJ^E^S TESTIMONY 

His impress on both. And in reading both 
if we translate aright, we should expect to 
hnd traces of His presence. We may read 
the rocky pages of the earth's primeval 
strata, or the pages of His Written Word — 
It does not matter which. If " there is One 
Law-giver," and we translate aright, there 
should be substantial harmony between the 
records. It is in vain we seek to set the one 
agamst the other. They cannot be forced 
into opposition. The facts of the one and 
the truths of the other are alike, the thoughts 
of God, and therefore cannot disagree In- 
terpretations may differ; but the things 
sought to be interpreted do not. And 
when the interpreters come to understand 
the records with which they seek to deal, 
It will h(t found that they do not. Hand in 
hand, therefore, they ought to go together 
in the work before them, each seeking to 
aid and encourage the other. Jealousy 
suspicion, and distrust should have no place 
between them. They are feelings of which 
both ought to be heartily ashamed. If 

"All Truth is from the Sempiternal Source 
Of Light divine," 



TO NATURE'S GOD. I3 

shall the rays quarrel among themselves ? 
Shall the yellow ray distrust the red ? Shall 
both suspect the blue ? True, they do not 
look alike. But combine them, and see 
how perfectly at one they are. How beau- 
tifully the white light of day comes forth 
from their union ! How sweetly it seems 
to smile over the discomfiture of those who 
thought the rays discordant ! 

And when Jesus said, '' I am the Way, 
and the Truth, and the Life,'* I suppose He 
covered the whole ground. '' I am the 
Truth!'' What truth? ^// truth. Truth 
of every name. Truth from every quarter. 
For truth streams forth from Him as sun- 
beams from the sun. It is the atmosphere 
of light about Him. It is the radiance of 
His presence. He is the Truth. Its glory 
is the coronet around His brow ! 

My theme, in the brief series of Sermons 
which I propose to deliver, is 

Nature 's Testimony to Nature 's God. 

And, desiring to deal with fundamental 
principles, as far as I may be able to 
grasp them, I call your attention to these 
words : 



14 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

'' Foreve}^, O Lo7^d f Thy word is settled 
in the Heavens, 

'' Thy faithfulness is tcnto all generations : 
Thon hast established the earth and it abide th. 
They continue this day, according to Thine 
ordina7ice : for all things serve . Thee!' 

Ps. cxix. 89-92. 

Now, these words, starting from the being 
of God, declare, 

a. That He has a purpose in the works 
of creation ; b. That He has estabHshed 
laws for their government ; c. That He has 
ever since maintained those laws ; d. That 
all His works serve His purpose ; or act as 
they do, because His will is on them. 

In other words, they bring before us my 
special theme to-night ; i. e.. 

The Uniformity of the Laws of Nature, 
For they affirm that, about as strongly as 
words can affirm anything. 

Now, as I understand it, there is no sub- 
ject about which men of science take so 
high a stand, and in view of which they 
make such imperious demands, as this. 
None which they seek to turn, so confi- 
dently; as a destroying weapon, against the 



TO NATURE'S GOD. I5 

teachings of the Word of God, as this. ' It 
is used, as a battering-ram, to break down 
the walls of defence around the doctrine of 
Prayer ; of Miracles ; and of a Special 
Providence, We are gravely told, that these 
are remnants of an effete superstition ; 
dreams of the dark Past ; idle fancies which 
must be given up before advancing light ! 
And if we ask, Why we are to surrender 
them ? we are assured that science has 
shown their fallacy. They are utterly incon- 
sistent with the Uniformity of the Laws of 
Nature I 

But now, what are the facts ? Is this 
doctrine of Uniformity a discovery of mod- 
ern times ? Is it something just brought to 
light? Were our fathers ignorant of it? 
Is it something for which we are indebted 
to the science of the nineteenth century ? 
Is it an advance on the teachings of the old 
Hebrew Prophets ? Oh, as far from this 
as possible ! It was asserted in the Word 
of God from the beginning ! 

It is, most positively, affirmed in the Text. 
No scientist could give it a more pronounced 
endorsement. And besides the Text, it 



l6 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

comes to us in varied forms. Thus, God 
says by His prophet: ''I have appointed 
the ordinances of heaven and of the earth/' 

Now, '' the oi'dinaiices of heaven and of 
the earth " are the laws which eovern them ; 
i. e., in the movements of the earth, and of 
its sister worlds. They are God's laws. 
Their wisdom is His. Their power is His. 
They are universal, because He is every- 
where. They are unchanging, because His 
purpose is fixed. They are, by His power! 
They act, according to His will ! 

Then, too, it is written, " While the earth 
remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold 
and heat, and summer and winter, and day 
and night, shall not cease." But if '' seed- 
time and harvest " shall not cease, why, the 
laws that govern the bringing about of 
seed-time and harvest must continue ! If 
''cold and heat" are to go on recurring, as 
they have been from the first, must not the 
laws of cold and heat remain unchanged? 
If '' summer and winter, and day and night," 
shall still return as now — and that, too, as 
long as ''the earth remaineth'' — are not 
the laws that govern in these phenomena 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 1/ 

to be uniform in their operation ? In other 
words, was not this doctrine of their uni- 
formity taught in the Scriptures, in the 
most unqualified way, more than two thou- 
sand years ago ? 

So, again, it is written of the heavenly 
bodies, " They shall be for signs and for 
seasons, and for days and for years/' And 
what have they been for, but this ? Is it 
not the universal experience ? Are they 
not counted on everywhere, for this, with 
the most implicit reliance ? When the 
mariner pushes his adventurous keel across 
the ocean, he has no more certain assur- 
ance of anything than that he will find them 
so! He turns his quadrant on the sun or 
stars ; makes a brief calculation ; and, laying 
aside his slate, says, " Yes, we are just at 
such or such a point, and, with our present 
rate of speed, will reach port by such a 
day ! '' They 3,v^.for signs to him. 

The astronomer, sitting in his study, talks 
of planets and stars, distant millions and 
millions of miles. He computes their dis- 
tance, measures their size, assigns their 
orbit, determines their revolutions. He cal- 



l8 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

culates their rising and their ^setting. He 
fixes the course of every edipse ; the points 
from which it will be visible ; the time of its 
deepest obscuration ; and the season at 
which it will occur again. They are for 
signs and for seasons to him ! But all this 
exactitude of knowledge and of operation 
is only Nature's testimony to her God. He 
has said that these things shall go on in 
unbroken uniformity. And they do! 
Therefore I say, that whatever there is in 
this doctrine of the Uniformity of the Laws 
of Nature, was a truth in the Word of 
God before it was written in the Book of 
Science ! All honor to those clear- visioned 
and noble men by whose researches it has 
been illustrated and enforced ! Illustrated, 
not discovered. Enforced, not first brought 
to light ! 

But I say to them, Let us understand 
one another ! This truth of the Uniformity 
of the Laws of Nature is not to be used to 
drive me from my position of faith in the 
Written Word of God, because it was first 
taught me in that Word ! You must not 
expect me to relax the grasp of faith in 



TO NATURE'S GOD. I9 

miracles, special providences, and prayer, 
as opposed to this uniformity ; because the 
same record that teaches me that, calls upon 
me to believe in those ! The " One Law- 
giver'' tells me of both. He tells me. He 
is not only the Governor of the Universe, 
but the Father of his Children ! And in 
the interests of their relationship to Him, 
He administers His Universal Government. 
So7newhere — if you have not yet discovered 
where — is to be found the principle on 
which their entire harmony, their agreement 
one with the other, is to be displayed. For 
the record is one ; and the key to its inter- 
pretation will show how harmonious it is ! 
Search, but do not sneer. Examine, but 
jio not denounce. Ponder well, but remem- 
ber that God is above and beyond you 
still ! Leave room in your philosophy for 
Him to work in ! 

But now let us define. What is this Uni- 
formity ? Briefly told, it is. That the same 
causes, operating under the same circum- 
stances ;will p7^oduce the same results ! Those 
results may occur daily, or once in a thou- 
sand years, and yet be equally illustrations 

B 



20 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

of this law. In the words of Prof. Tyndall, 
** The scientific mind can find no repose in 
the mere registration of sequence in Nature. 
The further question intrudes itself with 
resistless might, Whence comes the se- 
quence ? what is it that binds the conse- 
quent with its antecedent in Nature ? The 
truly scientific intellect never can attain 
rest until it reaches the fo7^ces by which the 
observed succession is produced." {Frag- 
ments of Science, p. 64.) 

Now that is the true position. You must 
reach the forces producing a given result, 
before the scientific mind can rest satisfied. 
Or, quoting again from that eminent scien- 
tist, '' I view Nature, Existence, the Universe, 
like the key-board of the piano-forte. What 
came before the bass I don't know, and 
what comes after the treble I equally little 
know or care. The key-board, with its 
black and its white keys, it is mine to 
study! " {A Tramp with Tyndall. Scribner, 
Dec, 1872, p. 190.) 

Now that is it exactly. And had this 
truth been observed ; had the principle it 
involves been acted up to; much of what 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 21 

has pained us all would never have taken 
place. The angry disputes as to the sup- 
posed conflicting claims of science and 
revealed religion would never been heard. 
If men would //^jj/ only on the key-board of 
facts and the forces producing them, we 
should have nothing but the divine harmony 
of truth making sweet music around us, 
instead of the harsh and jarring notes that 
now annoy and pain us all. Nor can I 
restrain myself from saying that, had Prof. 
Tyndall been governed by the principle of 
his own illustration, much of what has 
caused his best friends the deepest pain 
would never have been written. He has 
sought to lengthen the key-board ! And if, 
in doing so, he makes discord instead of 
harmony, should he be much surprised? 
Brethren ! you know, we all know, that all 
the trouble comes from this. Let the sci- 
entist and the theologian severally put his 
own special interpretation, in the place of 
the facts and the forces of the record with 
which he has to do, and I would like to 
know where either would stop ! For do 
we forget the proverb that. If we begin 
with an if we may end where we choose ! 



22 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

And now, let us see how this truth of the 
Uniformity of the Laws of Nature affects 
the truths of Revelation. In what attitude 
does it place Science, in reference to the 
Written Word of God ? 

Science has to do with Matter and the 
Forces that act upon it. W hat is Matter ? 
I do not know. No one knows ! W hat is 
Force? I do not know. No one can tell 
me ! There is Matter, and there are Forces 
that act upon it. Does any one know any 
more? 

Revealed Religion has to do with Spirit; 
i. e., the moral nature of man, and the pow- 
ers or forces that move and control it. What 
is Spirit? Who can tell ? Men have been 
asking the question for thousands of years, 
and we are no nearer the answer now than 
at the first. We cannot follow it into the 
Holy Place where it abides. We cannot lift 
the veil that hides it from our view ! And if 
w^e seek to rend it, the mysterious tenant is 
gone ! It is, we know. But what it is, no 
one knows. Yet its laws are just as de- 
fined as those of Matter. Just as certain. 
Just as uniform. And the Grace of God, 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 2^ 

acting as a force on this Spirit, is just ex- 
actly as definable as any other force ! And 
Faith and Hope and Love are as well ascer- 
tained, and as uniform, as Caloric, and Elec- 
tricity, and Magnetism ! 

Here is matter in the form of the Mag- 
net ! It will attract at one pole, and repel 
the same substances at the other. But, 
pass a stream of Galvanic Electricity through 
it, and at once its poles are reversed. It at- 
tracts where it repelled before, and it repels 
where it attracted before. 

Is what Jesus calls Conversion, or the New 
Birth, more wonderful than this ? Let the 
electric current of the Love of God in Jesus 
pervade the soul, and at once a correspond- 
ing change takes place ! The spirit comes 
to have new loves, new repulsions, new 
desires — i. e., new objects awaken these 
experiences. In both cases, the result is 
certain, uniform, definite. Always, elec- 
tricity, thus applied, produces certain re- 
sults. Always, the Love of God in Jesus, 
when received into the soul, becomes thus 
the controlling power ! 

Here is the Photographer s plate. Now, 



24 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

suppose, neglecting its cleansing, he puts it 
in the camera ? Will his operation be a 
success ? Will the light paint upon his 
plate a faithful picture of the object set 
before it ? Of course, it will not. No ; the 
picture will be blurred, deformed, obscure. 
Here is the human soul, placed beneath 
the light of the truth, as it streams around 
us from the Gospel of a Crucified and Risen 
Saviour ! But the dust of an absorbing 
selfishness lies upon its surface. Will the 
Truth perform its mission there ? Will it 
make a faithful imprint on that soul ? Of 
course, it will not ! Truth, of whatever 
character, is as much under the dominion 
of its law as Light is ; and the soul, like the 
Photographer's plate, must be cleansed, be- 
fore a clear impression will lie upon it. 
The law is as certain and as uniform in the 
one case as in the other.'^ 

"^ Prof. Tyndall thus employs this figure, in refer- 
ence to scientific truth : " The mind is, as it were, a 
photographic plate, which is gradually cleansed by 
the effort to think rightly ; and Avhen so cleansed., and 
not before, receives impression from the light of 
truth." — Fragments of Science, p. 60. 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 2$ 

We hear a great deal, in these days, of 
the Correlation of Forces, or, as Professor 
Tyndall terms it, the Conservation of En- 
ergy. And it is a subject singularly full of 
attractiveness and interest. It shows us 
that there is, everywhere, an essential sim- 
plicity in the operations of the material 
universe ; and that, in those operations, no 
new force is ever created. A change of 
form is all that takes place. •' Light runs 
into heat \ heat into electricity ; electricity 
into magnetism ; magnetism into mechan- 
ical force ; and mechanical force again into 
light and heat. The Proteus changes, but 
he is ever the same." {Fragments, etc, p. 38.) 
In other words, the potential becomes dy- 
namic. The power, the force, the energy, 
changes the form in which it comes before 
us, according to the circumstances under 
which it acts. No more. And all the va- 
riety and beauty and grandeur of the uni- 
verse comes forth under the operation of 
this law. It is wonderful ! Wonderful in 
its simplicity ! Wonderful in the ceaseless 
play of its activities ! 

But is it true of Matter alone ? Is it not 



26 NATURE'S TESTIMONY. 

also true of Mind and of Spirit f I cite 
now only one sphere of its action, though 
the entire realm of our spiritual nature 
offers its illustrations. Here, for example, 
is the Power or Force of the Love of God 
in Jesus. It is potential ; i. e., capable of 
taking on many forms of power, and is con- 
trolling in each. But how potential ? 

Bring it to bear on the human soul, and 
it becomes a converting energy. The man 
is changed by its power. Thence, it be- 
comes a guiding and impellhig energy. A 
new life is opened before him ; and it be- 
comes the active power of that life. It 
becomes the source of light in his dark- 
ness ; of strength in his weakness ; of wis- 
dom in his doubts and difficulties ; and of 
the upbuilding of true character, after the 
mind of Christ. With the Book of History 
before me, and in view of experiences now 
going on around us, I claim that this force 
or energy of the Love of God in Jesus is as 
THUch a force — and therefore as sure and 
as uniform in its operations, when its con- 
ditions are fulfilled — as the Proteus of 
v^hich Professor Tyndall speaks. The 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 2/ 

changes which it works, the varied forms 
which it takes on, and the active results it 
accompHshes, are as certain in the one case 
as in the other. That which it wrought 
out, in such splendid results, in the case of 
Saul of Tarsus, has been effected, just as 
really, in thousands of cases in the past ; 
and in those which you and I and every 
one of us know, in the circle of our own 
observation and experience. Why, it is 
just the acknowledged history of the Gos- 
pel, wherever the Gospel has come ! Men 
count on such results. It is a conceded 
thing, everywhere, that it has power to 
accomplish them. And when, in the case 
of a profession, they do not follow, we hear 
it said, // was all a prete^ice. The ma7i had 
not received the truth I 

Here is Electricity. Will all forms of 
iron receive it alike ? No. '' Soft iron is 
easily magnetized, but loses its magnetism 
when the magnetizing force is withdrawn. 
Steel is magnetized with difficulty, but it 
retains its magnetism even after the with- 
drawal of the magnetizing magnet.'' {Light 
and Electricity, p. 141.) 



28 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

Is not this operation in the reahn of 
Matter wonderfully paralleled in that of 
Mind or Soul ? Here is the Truth of God 
in the Gospel of Jesus. Do we not all 
know that some natures seem to be imme- 
diately responsive to it — yield to it at 
once — seem to be at once taken captive 
by it ? Is not every Pastor in the land able 
to cite cases of this kind ? Cases that move 
the liveliest hopes ; but about which, when 
you come to look for results, you are 
doomed to disappointment? You find 
nothing permanent. They bring no fruit to 
perfection. Their goodness is as the early 
cloud and morning dew, which passeth away 
— or, if you choose, like the magnetic state 
of soft iron, easily dissipated. 

Again, are there not others that oppose 
it at every point ? You seem to make 
small headway in impressing them with it. 
Like steel to electricity, they meet it with a 
determined resistance. But when they are 
impressed by it, the impression remains. 
It is an abiding change, and goes on working 
its legitimate results. You feel and know 
that the Truth has gone down to the springs 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 29 

of character, and brought out thence the 
gushing streams of a new hfe ! 

I pray you observe, I am speaking now 
oi facts altogether, not of causes ; of opera- 
tions, not of the mode in which they are 
brought about ! And I say that, to what- 
ever department of His works we turn, 
traces of the '' One Law-giver''' meet us 
there. Does not every law in the realm 
of Matter seem to indicate a corresponding 
law in that of Spirit ? Is not law as uni- 
form in the Truths of the Gospel as in the 
phenomena 6T Science ? This Unifo7^}nity 
of the Lazvs of God, why, brethren, it under- 
lies every hope the Gospel sets before us ! 
Take it away, dig beneath its foundation, 
affect its certainty, and everything is lost. 

I therefore rejoice in it as much as the 
scientist, who seeks to claim it peculiarly 
his own. I count upon it as absolutely as 
he. I rest upon it with at least as firm a 
faith. For my claim to it is older than his. 
I look up to the starry sky, and out upon 
the broad domains of the Universe, and I 
say, with a bounding pulse and a thrill of 
joy: ''Forever, O Lord ! Thy Word is set- 



30 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

tied in the Heavens ; Thy faithfulness is unto 
all ge7ierations, 

^^ Yes ! every word of grace is strong 
As that which built the skies ; 
The Voice that rolls the stars along 
Speaks all the promises." 

I claim for my God, One whose word is 
sure ; whose counsel is fixed ; who writes 
Himself, '' Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, 
and to-day, and forever I '' Who says of 
Himself, ''I am the Lord, / change not; 
therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not con- 
sumed ! " Who, pointing to the heavens 
above and to the earth beneath, to raise 
emotions of fixity in our minds, says, ''It is 
easier for Jieaven and earth to pass aivay, 
than for one tittle of the Law to fail ! " 
Thank God for that word ''easier!'' I 
know what it means. I know how fixed 
and sure and unalterable the ordinances of 
heaven and earth are ! But it is easier 
for them to fail than for my Hope in Christ 
to be lost ! I look on them, and say. How 
firm they are ! How unchanging ! But the 
hope which fastens on the Word of a Cru- 
cified and Risen Saviour is stronger than 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 



31 



they ! And on that I rest. I am safe. 1 
cannot quarrel with those who seek to build 
up the lower, because only the material side 
of this great truth. But in the fulness of 
my own joy, in its higher range, I pray that 
they might be brought to feel and know it 
too! 





SERMON 11/^ 

THE APPARENT EXCEPTIONS TO THE UNIFORM- 
ITY OF nature's laws. 

^^ It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." — 
(jProv, XXV. 2.) 

^^0-NIGHT I advance a step on the 
wip position gained in my last Sermon, 
"^ and ask your best attention, while I 
bring before you, 

The Apparent Exceptions to the Uniformity 
of Nature's Laws, And I ^2,y '' apparent^' 
rather than real, for reasons that will dis- 
close themselves as I advance. 

Were Nature a system of dead matter 
only, as in the stellar worlds, I suppose 

* For obvious reasons, I omit the Review of the 
last Sermon, which, in preaching, I always gave. 



NATURE'S TESTIMONY. 33 

there micrht and would be one unbroken 
flow of cause and effect. The same cause 
would work on, under the same circum- 
stances, producing continually the same 
results. There would be neither variable- 
ness nor shadow of turning. It might be 
so arranged as to forecast results, through 
an unending cycle of years, with infallible 
certainty. Such has been the idea of 
mathematicians and philosophers. Such 
was that of the late distinguished Charles 
Babbage, in his famous calculating machine. 
Of this he had for many years held the idea ; 
and its development in the machine itself 
was commenced, under his supervision, at 
the expense of the Government, in 1821. 
In twelve years he had spent ^85,000 on 
the work, and so far perfected it, that it was 
justly regarded as a noble triumph of 
mathematical and mechanical skill. It was 
so arranged that, in calculating astronomical 
and nautical tables, he could so adjust its 
parts, that it should at any future time, 
ever so remote, make one or two seeming 
exceptions to the law it had, up to that 
time, observed. And yet these excepted 



34 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

cases would not be exceptions ; but abso- 
lutely the natural consequence of the first 
adjustment of the machine. Thus, it could 
be so adjusted "^as to register square num- 
bers only, for centuries, and then, at a given 
time, register cube numbers, in one instance 
or more, and then return ao[-ain to its former 
course. And so, he suggests, it may be 
with the material universe. It may be set, 
so to speak, to record a given set of mo- 
tions and results through thousands and 
thousands of years; to bring about seeming 
exceptions to the law that we have been 
accustomed to regard as special interpo- 
sitions of Divine Providence ; and that yet, 
after all, these may be only natural results, 
provided for from the first, in the adjustment 
of the machinery of the Universe ! 

Now, it will not be denied, I suppose, 
that, to a mathematician, this would convey 
a very grand and exalted conception of 
God. But then, you observe, it would be 
the grandeur of dead matter only. And 
what would such an empire be worth? 
Suppose it could be so adjusted ? Can we 
form no worthier conception of God, than 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 35 

that He is the Builder — we should not 
then need Him as Sustaiiier — of this vast 
Machine of the Universe ; infinite in its 
parts, and perfect in their adjustment, but 
still only a machine? To rule over barren 
worlds may be greater, indeed ; but is it 
nobler, than our children's play with the 
wires of a puppet? 

There comes in here, however, a fatal 
objection. Did Mr. Babbage construct this 
machine y^r itself? Was it merely to dis- 
play his skill ? Did Government aid him 
for this ? No, you reply. The idea would 
be absurd. This machine meant some- 
thing. He had an end in view in its con- 
struction ; an end worthy of the thought 
and labor and means expended on it. It 
was for this he thought ; for this he labored 
and planned. The Government gave him 
material aid for this. 

So, back of Creation, lies an end worthy 
of Creation : a purpose which the Creator 
had in view. It means something. It was 
to accomplish something. You may mul- 
tiply worlds as you choose ; you may bring 
them under the most exact and perfect 



36 NA TURE'S TES TIM O N Y 

system of law ; you may marshal them in 
the most faultless manner, and make them 
capable of infinite complexity of revolu- 
tion ; and if, just as so many worlds — only 
as so much dead matter, under law — you 
contemplate them, the mind refuses to see 
in their creation an act worthy of God ! 

Therefore, we are compelled to conclude 
that, back of all this lavish display of wisdom 
and power, there lies an end worthy of it 
all. It was not put forth for itself. I do 
not propose now to ask the question, what 
that end is ? I insist only, at present, that 
there is such an end ; that it underlies the 
entire system of things which we call the 
zuorks of Nature, and that, therefore, crea- 
tion is not to be interpreted as one system 
of law. It is a system within a system. It 
shows us laws operating within the sphere 
of other laws ; each acting and re-acting on 
the other, and thus producing results im- 
possible to be pi^oduced were there only one ! 

Here, e, g., is a physician. What is his 
sphere ? Repairing injuries wrought by 
the transgression of natural law. But how 
repairing them ? By the use of remedies 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 37 

which Nature herself supplies. Now I say, 
if Mr. Babbage's idea were correct ; if the 
world were constructed on the idea of his 
calculating machine, and I break my limb, 
it must remaiii broken ; Nature supplies 
no power to heal ; I am left with the con- 
sequences of my act. Law rushes remorse- 
lessly on, crushing whatever comes in its way. 

But is this the truth ? No ! Every one 
knows it is not. Within or alongside of 
this system oi penalty for transgression, lies 
the other system of repair, as extensive, as 
certain, and as uniform as it. Is not the 
Science of Medicine founded on this fact ? 
And do we not everywhere hear the words 
of its professors, '' Oh, we do what we can, 
and Nature does the rest ! " 

And how, if this be an illustration of the 
truth in the higher realms of moral agen- 
cies ? How if Nature itself is keyed to this 
truth of a restorative process, by one system 
of law acting within the realm of another ? 
— how, if these laws of matter are only 
illustrations of those of spirit? And how, 
if, in its domain, restoration from transgres- 
sion be the end in view? 



38 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

We live, therefore, in a network of law. 
One system acts on another, and the labors 
of the student of Nature, to whatever 
department he may belong, point to the 
detection of those laws, and the verifying 
of the results they produce. 

Now the Text looks to such a state of 
things as this. 

" // is the glory of God to conceal a 
thing!' How is it? In a twofold sense, 
doubtless, i, e, : 

a. As showing forth His wisdom hi His 
works of creation. 

b. As opening a field for the exercise of 
man ' s loftiest powers. 

Here are the stellar worlds. For thou- 
sands of years they were moving on, in the 
silent grandeur of their course ! And men 
looked on in wonder, and asked. What is the 
power that upholds them — the law that 
directs them ? And then came the revela- 
tion of this hidden thing ; the unfolding of 
the Law of Gravitation. And of this, it is 
scarcely too much to say, with Pope, that : 

^^ Superior beings, when of late they saw 
A mortal man unfold all Nature's Law, 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 39 

Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, 
And showed a Newton as we show an ape." 

And how far-reaching that law is ! It 
prescribes the form of the heavenly bodies. 
It moulds the dew-drop. It hurls down the 
mountain-torrent and the avalanche. It 
causes the fall of the snow-flake ; and makes 
the movements of living beings on the 
earth, in the air, and through the water, a 
possible thing. 

What guides the comet in its wild career ? 
The Law that rules the trembling of a tear ! 

And thus, as we extend our search, we 
gain additional proof that the revelations 
of Science, however varied and wonderful 
they may be, are only man's lifting up of the 
veil that hides the secrets of created things 
— only bringing to the light that which God 
at first concealed ! And at each step in 
the process, true Science bows her head, 
and says, ''Lo! these are a part of His 
ways ! " 

But, in these revelations, we meet with 
what I have ventured to call apparent ex- 
ceptions to the Uniformity of these Laws. 



40 NA T UR E \S TE S TIM ONY 

I say apparcjit, for they are only so. They 
are the subjects of law, every one, but, as 
yet, we know not the law of which they are 
subject. As we look back along the line 
of discovery, we find continually-recurring 
instances of what were supposed to be ex- 
ceptions to law, or departures from it, taking 
their place under its banner, as truly as 
those whose legitimacy had never been 
doubted. Will it not be so with those 
other facts and phenomena that, thus far, 
have eluded our search? 

But, as we advance in our knowledge of 
law, we meet with phenomena that seem to 
be not only exceptions, they might almost 
pass for contradictions, so directly do they 
seem to cross the track of our previous 
knowledge of law. For example : Water 
freezes at 32 degrees above zero ; mercury 
at 40 degrees below it. But here is a metal 
crucible. It is heated to red heat. The 
chemist pours into it a given mixture, which 
instantly breaks out into brilliant flames. 
Quicksilver is then poured in ; and in a few 
seconds, it may be taken from the crucible, 
through the flames, a solid, frozen mass. 



rO NATURE' S GOD. 4I 

Now here the temperature is lowered 72 
degrees below the freezing point of water. 
And this reduction takes place, and the 
mercury is frozen, in the midst of the cru- 
cible heated to red heat, and itself wrapped 
in a sheet of flame ! I know it is done by law. 
But it seems a fabled tale. Itlooks like magic. 
It is a well-attested and undoubted experi- 
ment in Natural Philosophy. I think I can 
tell how it was that a certain '' bush burned 
with fire," and yet ''was not consitmedy' 
when I learn how mercury is frozen in the 
midst of a red-hot crucible and enveloped 
in flames. Does it not seem to be an ex- 
ception to law — almost a contradiction of 
law? Could any of the miracles of the Old 
or New Testament be regarded as having 
more of the 1nirac^do^LS about them than 
this, if it had been performed a century 
ago ? Would the life of the experimenter 
have been quite safe from popular frenzy? 
We know that it is a purely legitimate re- 
sult. But is not that because our mastery 
of law is such as to place many of the most 
secret operations of Nature fully in the 
light* before us ? Yet how much, even 



42 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

more marvelous than this, lies beyond us 
still ! 

Again : There is no law better estab- 
lished than that of the expansive power of 
heat. It tends to push the particles of 
bodies asunder. Heat expands all bodies. 
But, take water at 32° Fahrenheit, z. c, just 
as it is melted, or as it begins to freeze, 
and measure its bulk. Then raise its tem- 
perature one degree, /. e., to 33° Fahren- 
heit. It should increase in bulk, as every 
other liquid does. But does it ? No. It 
absolutely ^^;^/ra^/^ .^ Raise it to 34°. It 
still contracts. Raise it to 35"", 36"", 37°, 
and what is the result ? It still contracts. 
Raise it still further, to 38°, 39°, and what 
then ? Up to 39°, contraction still goes on. 
Pass this point. Raise its temperature 
above 39°, and the phenomenon is reversed. 
Instantly it begins to expand, just as every 
other liquid does. Henceforth it obeys the 
same law. 

Who can explain this ? How comes it 
that water is thus the exception to the Uni- 
versal Law ? How comes it that, unlike 
all other liquids, heat contracts it, from 32° 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 43 

to 39° Fahrenheit, and that, after passing 
that point, it invariably asserts its power 
over it, as it does over all other liquids. 
How is this ? 

I do not know — no one knows. Science 
has no answer ! There is no known force 
at work in the water, between the two 
points indicated. The fact alone comes 
and stares us in the face. The cause of it 
is one of the hidden things that thus far has 
eluded our search. God has " concealed " 
it from us. No doubt, the contraction of 
water under heat, up to a certain point, is 
as much the result of law, as its expansion 
after we pass that point. Only the law is 
unknown. We wait its coming disclosure. 

Does there not seem to be, in such cases, 
just as I have said, a law within a law ; 
affecting, modifying, controlling one an- 
other ? Can a7iy one system of law account 
for them ? Do they not seem to await cer- 
tain conditions, surroundings, brought about 
by agencies outside themselves ; and then 
suddenly to spring into activity and assert 
their presence ? And now suppose, as the 
proof demonstrates in some departments 



44 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

of science — suppose that there are possibil- 
ities of action ; realms of power, yet undis- 
covered ; capacities awaiting their coming 
day ? Would it not tend to show that, 
after all, the miraculous is only the natural 
in a higher range of law than zve have yet 
attained to ? Would it not suggest that 
men who have orained credit for clearness 
of vision, have denied the light because 
they could not see ? 

And we see the same truth applying 
itself when we come to examiae the func- 
tions of the living body? Do we quite 
understand how it is, that the brain, which 
is the source and centre of sensation, is 
itself insensible ? Is all our science able to 
read this riddle, and brino- to liorht this 
" concealed " thing ? Do we fare any better 
when we ask how it is, that of all the 
muscles of the body, the Heart is the only 
one that is absolutely tireless ? We see, 
very clearly indeed, that it ottght to be so ; 
and how^ disastrous would be the result if 
it were not ! But who sees, who can tell, 
how it is ? Do we know anything about 
the force that makes it so ? Every other 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 45 

muscle relaxes under exercise; and calls 
for rest to restore its tone and vigor. Why 
does not the heart? It is in ceaseless 
activity. From birth to death ; through 
sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years — and 
sometimes beyond that — it continues its 
labor, never intermitting it, and never 
knowing fatigue. 

And see how great that labor is ! The 
amount of blood in the body of the average 
adult man is about eighteen pounds. This 
the heart forces through the entire body 
about forty - five times every hour ; or 
1080 times every day. Therefore, this 
living force-pump, weighing in the average 
man about eight ounces, is equal to the 
task of driving through the body the weight 
of 19,440 pounds daily! How wonderful 
this is ! And yet it never tires ! How comes 
this ? How is the heart thus an exception 
to the general law of muscular action ? Is 
there not some force here, that we know 
not of, working out this beneficent result ? 
Some force that God has concealed, as the 
special endowment of this organ ; and which 
all our science has thus far failed to bring 
to light ? 



46 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

It would be easy to multiply examples ; 
but it is needless for the purpose I have in 
view. The path is open to the conclusions 
I wish to draw. 

Let it be granted, as a truth not for a 
moment to be controverted, that the Laws 
of Nature are uniform in their operation ? 
wStill, I say, 

a. We do not know either all the forms 
of matter or all the forces which act upon 
them. We should, therefore, be extremely 
modest in the conclusions we draw con- 
cerning them. 

b. We do not know all the prop*erties 
and laws of those forms of matter with 
which we are most familiar. And, there- 
fore, 

c. We do not know all the phenomena 
which may arise in connection with them. 

Need I argue these propositions? Is not 
their bearing on the theme before us too 
clear and direct to be disputed ? All along 
the pathway of scientific discovery we meet 
with facts which seem to be exceptions to 
the laws previously known. We j^elieve, 
indeed, that they are not ; but are rather 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 47 

results of other laws not known till then ; 
and, in some cases, of laws not known at all. 
And, as far as the labors of scientists have 
gone, we are able to verify this.* No new 
law is introduced when Science enlarges 
her boundaries. Discovery is all. From 
the beginning, the laws and the forces 

* As an illustration of this (not given in my Ser- 
mon), I may cite the following : — Phosphorus was 
discovered, A. D. 1669. From that time up to 1844, 
nothing was more certain than the properties of this 
singular substance. It is semi-transparent, nearly 
colorless, flexible, easily cut with a knife, or pinched 
with the nail ; exhibits a soft, waxy lustre ; is inflam- 
mable at a very low temperature ; requires to be kept 
under water ; has poisonous properties, and emits an 
unpleasant odor. But in 1844, phosphorus was pre- 
pared, differing in all these particulars. It is called 
red, a77iorphous phosphorus ; is hard and brittle ; not 
so luminous, and by no means so inflammable ; has 
not the poisonous properties of the common phos- 
phorus ; undergoes no change in the air \ and emits no 
odor ! Yet it is phosphorus, and our teachers call it 
allotropic, i, e., phosphorus i7t another form, differing 
in properties, and yet being, and confessed to be, the 
same ! Who will tell us how this is ? We know well 
enough how it is prepared ; but how it co7?tes to differ, 
what are the forces that make it differ, I believe no one 
knows. 



48 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

which we now know, had been in existence, 
awaiting discovery. From the beginning, 
the phenomena produced by them would 
have been the same as they are now ; had 
the forces themselves been known. Science 
is not creation of new forces. It is only the 
discovery of those before unknown. It is 
just bringing to light that which God had 
concealed. And who can say how far this 
process may extend ? Who is entitled to 
say, we are at the end of it? On the con- 
trary, does not every new phenomenon, 
every new force or order of sequence, seem 
to suggest some other yet to follow ? If we 
did not know the laws or forces producing 
these phenomena, it would not be easy to 
point out anything more clearly miraculous 
than many of the best established which a 
lecturer on the Natural Sciences will ex- 
hibit to his hearers. Who can say that the 
miracles of the Old and New Testament 
are, in principle, more than this ? Who can 
say that the narrative involves more than 
the presence of One who perfectly knew 
the laws at work in the case ; and had power 
to rouse them into activity at His will? 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 49 

Who can say, that if these laws were known 
to us, the phenomena they produce would 
not be regarded as purely natural, as is the 
freezing of mercury in a red-hot crucible ? 
I do not know that, save in the matter of 
time, the turning of water into wine was 
more than what is accomplished for us, 
through the vine, every year ! I acknowl- 
edge both as an exercise of Divine power ; 
but cannot see that one instance of it is 
greater than the other. Difference of actioti 
is all, so far as I can see it. Of course, the 
miracle seems to be an exception to the 
general working of the law involved in the 
case. But how an exception ? Is it so in 
any other sense than that the laws under 
which it occurs are unknown to us ? That 
the blind should receive sight at the touch 
of Jesus of Nazareth is, indeed, an exception 
to the ordinary course of the experience of 
the blind. But is it more so than the fact 
just referred to ? Higher up in the scale 
of course it is. But how, in principle, is it 
different? Somehow, a force was acting on 
the mercury that does not commonly act on 
it before intense heat ! Somehow, a force 



50 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

was acting on the optic nerve of the Wind 
that had not acted on it before ! But the 
mercury was frozen, as other Hquids are 
frozen. The bhnd man saw, as other people 
see. In neither case was any law sus- 
pended ; interfered with; disturbed. 

So with causing the deaf to hear. So 
with restoring the lame, and cleansing the 
leper, and raising the dead. In every case, 
I understand, the result was secured in 
accordance with the laws of the case in 
hand. They saw as they had seen before, 
or as others saw. They heard as others 
heard ; and walked as others walked ; and 
felt the pulse of health as others felt it ; 
and lived just as others lived. There was 
no new thing created. Somehow, they 
were brought again under the healthful 
dominion of law, that in their case had been 
interrupted in its flow. And it seems to me 
the glory of the work of Jesus, as a Healer, 
that He was able to do this. A Healer, not 
a Physician. For the physician works by 
means external to himself — but a Healer 
by His own indwelling power. 

And now, gathering up these lines of 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 5 1 

thought, we reach the following conclusions : 

I. Oicr knowledge is but fragmentary . It 
is but little that we know ; and those who 
know the most are most assured of this. 
The World of Matter, with which Science 
has to do, is a great book, and we have, 
thus far, turned only a few of its pages. 

II. The spirit that seeks to set the Truths 
of Nature in opposition to those of Revelation 
is false I For all truth is one. Every truth 
is in harmony with every other truth. There 
is discord only between the False and the 
True. Is it not time we learned this, and 
rejoiced in the spread of truth, from what- 
ever quarter it may come ? 

III. Man is more than Science can Tneas- 
ure I He has desires and hopes and 
aspirations ; vast capacities of being ; which 
refuse to submit themselves to any physical 
tests. He is more than the formularies of 
the mathematician can express ; more than 
the experiments of the chemist can illustrate. 
When these have done what they can, Man 
is beyond them still. His spirit kindles 
with the thought, / am more thaii all these! 
I can take in the thought of God ! I can 

D 



52 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

thrill with an immortal Hope ! I can glow 
with a deathless Love ! I can triumph in 
an all-conquering Faith ! 

IV. The Soul cries out for God; who, be- 
sides being the Governor of the Universe, is 
our Father in Heaven ! This is our chief 
distinction. There is no want so great as 
that which prompts us to seek God. No 
power so great as that by which God can 
reveal Himself to the soul ; and entering 
in, fill it with Himself! 

V. Revelatio7i, therefore, crowns His work, 
by showing Him to its, God manifested in 
yesns ! Here is the hiding of His power; 
the fulness of His beino- • the bricrhtness of 
His glory. In Him, God comes forth to 
human view, made in our nature, bearing 
our sicknesses, taking our infirmities. And 
while the bosom glows with the inspiration 
of the thought, '' He telleth the number of 
the stars, and calleth them all by their 
names ; He healeth the broken in heart, and 
bindeth up their wounds ; '' the spirit owms 
the power of that wondrous and gracious 
word, '* Come nnto Me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I ivill give you 7^est I '' 




SERMON III. 

MAN AS A SUPERNATURAL BEING. 

^^Thou madest him to have dominion over the 
works of Thy hands. Thou hast put all things under 
his feet." — Fs. viii. 6. 

^^HIS is the re-statement, from the pro- 
^Mp phetic stand-point, of the grant of 
power, first made by God to Man. 
He was to have dominion over the works of 
God. He was invested with authority. He 
was to move on the earth as its Lord. He 
was to have power over the operations of the 
elements ; over the other creatures on its 
surface : over all things, as being in perfect 
harmony with the mind and will of God. 

The Text, you observe, is dealing only 
with God's desig7i concerning Man. It does 
not touch the question, How far is this do- 
minion now possessed by him ? It simply 

53 



54 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

States a fact ; a fact in the mind of God ; a 
fact expressed in His creation of Man. He 
was to have dominion over His works. He 
was made for this. 

St. Paul (Heb. ii. 6-10) takes up the line 
of argument, from this point, and declares 
that this design is not yet, in point of fact, 
accomplished. *' We see not yet all things 
put under him.'' For the dominion first 
bestowed was lost. Man fell ; but Jesus, 
as Son of Man, has undertaken the work 
of restoration from the fall. In Him our 
lost inheritance shall be regained. As Son 
of Man He came, standing where Man at 
first stood. As such, He had dominion 
over the works of God. He could move 
on the Laws and processes of Nature, and 
win from them a testimony to a power out- 
side of them ; a power that men had never 
seen exercised before. And so, I submit, 
His great works — appealed to always, by 
Him, as proof of His Messiahship — were 
premonitions, foreshadowingS, of what will 
be the settled order of Nature when the 
disturbing element of Sin shall have been 
taken away. 

To-night, I advance another step in the 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 55 

line of the great subject before me, and 
ask you, in following out the thought of 
the Text, to consider 

Man as a Supernatural Being. 

You are surprised at this use of the 
term ? But in the light of the Text, I think 
you will find no difficulty in adopting it. 

I know that the common use of the word 
starts the idea of an agency in some way 
marvelous or ghostly ; of some thing or 
some being above the Laws of Nature, 
and interfering with or controlling them, at 
pleasure. I do not so use it. 

Webster defines it as " being beyond or 
exceeding the power of the laws of Nature; 
miraculous.'' But, then you observe, we 
must know what the Laws of Nature are, 
before we can say what is beyond those laws. 
We must know the natural, before we can 
tell what is superxi2X\ix?iX. 

The Text, therefore, suggests the sense 
in which I desire to use this word. Man 
was made to have dominion over the works 
of God. How have dominion ? Not by 
arbitrary force. Not by disturbing other- 
wise harmonious operations. Does not 
the narrative show that he was invested 



56 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

with dominion ? Does it not show that, 
before he fell from his allegiance to God, 
he exercised this dominion, as being in entire 
accord with the will of God; expressed in the 
laws of the material Universe ? He had 
insight into those laws ; knowledge of them 
such as we have not now. His dominion, 
therefore, was not that of breaking or dis- 
turbing law. It was not in coming down 
on Nature with an outside force ; but in 
moving in a higher sphere of law than the 
other creatures of God around him. Touch- 
ing the springs of activities to which they 
could not reach, and thus attaining results 
impossible for them to accomplish. 

Let it be granted that of this power a 
portion still remains. A little portion in- 
deed ! Perhaps, only the capacity of attaining 
it. You cannot think that man's supremacy 
now is what was meant by the dominion 
of which the Text speaks ? You cannot 
think that the rule he has over Nature now 
is what was in the mind of St. Paul, when 
he spoke of the restoration Jesus was to 
bring in ? That which he has to-day, he has 
gained as the result of ages and centuries 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 57 

of toil. Generations have come and gone, 
and each one has added something to the 
foundation of power on which he stands. 
But the dominion of which the Text speaks 
was given him by God. The capacity for 
it was inwrought; a portion of the rich en- 
dowment with which he stood forth first 
among the creatures of God ! No doubt it 
is in consequence of this, that he has been 
able to achieve what he has achieved. His 
triumphs, as science and the arts record 
them, are only the results of power first 
conferred, but as yet never fully enjoyed. 
Beyond all these, and nobler than all these, 
lies the grant of dominion first made to 
him, but from which, by sin, he has fallen. 
We wait the day of restoration. Jesus will 
yet bring it in. 

And of this, the very word Nahi7^e gives 
us a real, though perhaps unconscious, re- 
minder. What is Nature ? 

The word is the future, passive participle 
of the Latin verb, Nascor, to be born, or 
come into being. Literally, therefore, Na- 
ture means, that which shall be born, or 
come to be. It cannot, then, be an ordain- 



$8 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

ing power, sitting in the seat of authority. 
It is a result, foreshadowing what shall be, 
when all outside and restraining influences 
are done away. And, therefore, the Scrip- 
tures — which, after all, contain the germs 
of the true philosophy of every subject of 
which they speak — represent Creation as 
waiting for its birth, travailing to be deliv- 
ered. Certain laws are impressed on it, 
which yet we do not see. The labors of 
the scientist bring to light, here one and 
there another, of those laws. But, after all, 
how little we know ! The revealing day is 
yet to come. Nature waits her coming 
birth. 

Now, it Is in this sense, I speak of Man 
as a Supernatural Being ; i. e,, as one orig- 
inally endowed with dominion over the 
works of God. And it is a striking thing, 
how far, in our common speech, we speak 
of the works of Man as belonging to one 
class, and those of Nature to another. As 
the Duke of Argyl, in his very admirable 
work, "The Reign of Law," expresses it, 
"The mind and will of man belong to an 
order of existence very different from phy- 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 59 

sical laws, and very different also from the 
fixed and narrow instincts of the lower 
animals. It is a distinction bearing witness 
to the universal consciousness that the 
mind of Man has within it something of a 
truly creative energy and force ; that we 
are, in a sense, fellow-workers with God, 
and have been, in a measure, '' made par- 
takers of the Divine nature'' (p. 9). 

In one sense, indeed, the bird, in .building 
its nest, acts on Nature ; does that which 
Nature, alone, cannot do. For nothing but 
a bird can build a bird's nest. And so of 
the beaver and the bee. The hut of the 
one, and the cell of the other, could never 
be produced until the beaver and the 
bee produced them. Yet thousands of 
years pass, and we look in vain for any 
change or improvement in either. They 
stand in the line of cause and effect ; with 
no power in themselves to go outside of 
the line ; to extend its area, or modify it in 
any way. But the domain of Man is con- 
tinually enlarging. He comes to the 
knowledge of the laws which God has 
impressed on His works, until his own 



6o NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

works seem to be a new creation. As 
developing the laws of Nature ; as making 
way for the exercise of the dominion first 
conferred upon him ; we may, in one sense, 
speak of them as supernatural ; i. e,, as 
belonging to the realm of Mind, and illus- 
trating the power which Mind gains by 
obeying material laws. And it is in this 
sense I use the word supernatural, as ap- 
plied to Man. He can act on Nature, while 
himself belonging to another sphere. And 
he acts on her, not by suspending her laws ; 
not by interfering with them in any way, 
but by bringing one law to modify another ; 
or in effecting combinations which, without 
him, could not have been effected. 

The nightingale has wondrous powers 
of song, but it knows nothing of music; 
nothing of the combination of parts that 
make up the perfect song. Man, too, has 
power of song. But he comprehends mu- 
sic. He discovers its laws, the relation 
which one part bears to another, and the 
results of their combination. Hence the 
fully-equipped choir ; or the Peace Jubilee, 
with its marvelous wealth of parts, whis- 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 6l 

pering, soaring, thrilling, ringing, clashing, 
thundering, through all the realms of sound. 
Doubtless, in one sense, all this was natu- 
ral. Yet was it not something which Nature 
could not do ? There was no breach of 
law, no suspension of law, no interference 
with law. There was nothing but obedience 
to law, all through. The triumph was by 
obedience. Yet the triumphing power was 
in the realm of Mind ; outside of Nature, 
above it ; having dominion over it ; and 
bringing about combinations never known 
before. 

Take another illustration. Here is wood. 
Here are metals, tusks of elephants, en- 
trails of beasts. Of course they are simply 
natural products ; and, as such, would con- 
tinue as they are, subject only to the laws 
of disintegration. But Man comes. He 
thinks, experiments, constructs. And the 
harp, the organ, the piano, the violin, and 
the instruments of the brass band, come 
forth as the results. What are these? 
Simply, natural productions ? So far as 
their materials go. Yes ! So far as the laws 
go, in obedience to which they are made, 



62 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

Yes ! But so far as their construction goes, 
No ! They are something more. They 
testify to the presence of a being outside 
the sphere to which they belong, and who 
has power over them; so long as he obeys 
their laws. Is not this dominion ? A part 
of the power — and capacity of power, if 
you choose — first conferred on man ? 

Iron is simply a natural product. But 
is the Locomotive ? Of what wealth of 
thought ; of what tireless labor ; of what 
patient and indomitable energy, is it the 
result ! How like a miracle of power it 
seems, as it thunders on its way ! Yet how 
passive it becomes at a single movement 
of the lever in the hands of the engineer ! 

Iron is a natural product. But is the 
Telegraph, flashing its news across the 
continent, and under the ocean, nothing 
more ? 

Of course, silex, in the form of sand, is 
a natural production. But in the form of 
the lens, in the Microscope and Telescope, 
is it not something more ? Could Nature 
ever produce it? Do not these things — 
and all the inventions of Art and all the 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 63 

discoveries of Science — testify to one who 
has dominion over the works of God 
around him? One who can move upon 
them from a plane above them ; make of 
them combinations, and bring out of them 
powers, and put them to uses, unknown 
before ? The materials out of which these 
things are constructed, are in the domains 
of Nature, part of the rich endowment God 
has bestowed upon hen Yet, simply as 
natural productions, they must remain for- 
ever what they were at first. Their varied 
powers must lie unknown, buried up, as it 
were, in the body possessing them ; awaiting 
the coming of one who can call them forth. 
And Man comes. With his power of mind 
and will, he lays the hands of control upon 
them ; rouses their slumbering capacities ; 
gives them new forms, puts them to new 
uses ; and makes them servants of his 
pleasure in his great work as '' Minister 
and Interpreter of Nature '* ! 

Now, take away our knowledge of the 
laws and forces by which these results are 
produced — letting the results themselves 
remain — ^and we would be surrounded by 



64 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

miracles of the most astounding character. 
Is not this, so far, proof of the truth 
declared in the Text ? Is it not, so far, 
dominion ? What is dominion ? Is it not 
power of control ? And is not the being 
who has it, more than that which he con- 
trols ? What is Science but a many-sided, 
though, as yet, imperfect, illustration of 
Man's dominion ? And the Arts and the 
achievements of Civilization — what are all 
these but so many utterances of the same 
truth ? I conclude, therefore, that, in this 
sense, it is competent to speak of Man as 
a Supernatural Being. He is more than 
the other works of God, He has powers 
beyond and above theirs. He can intro- 
duce new elements into the line of causa- 
tion ; and send forth results which, if not 
miraculous, are not so only because we 
know the secret of the laws producing 
them. 

And how far may we go in this direction? 
— Doubtless, Man was made next to God, 
in dignity and power ; endowed with .do- 
minion over all His works ; exalted to the 
chief seat of authority. But Sin soon came; 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 65 

and he fell from that authority, because he 
was no longer in harmony with the Mind 
and Will of God. Shall he remain so ? No ! 
Because the Redeemer from sin was prom- 
ised ; and at the appointed time He came 
— Jesus, the Second Man — endowed in 
His humanity with all the powers that be- 
longed to the First. 

And, just at this point, I recall an admis- 
sion made by Professor Tyndall, which, I 
confess, surprised me much. It occurs in 
his article on Miracles and Special Provi- 
dences — a review of Mr. Mozley's Bampton 
Lectures, 1865. In it he says : "For, what 
is his (Mr. M.'s) logical ground for con- 
cluding that the miracles of the New Tes- 
tament illustrate Divine power ? May they 
not be the result of expanded human 
power ? A miracle he defines as something 
impossible to man. But how does he 
know that the miracles of the New Testa- 
ment are impossible to man ? Seek as he 
may, he has absolutely no reason to adduce, 
save this — that man has never, hitherto, 
accomplished such things. But does the 
fact that man has never raised the dead, 



66 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

prove that he never can raise the dead ? 
Assuredly not, must be Mr. Mozley's reply. 
.... Then, a period may come when man 
will be able to raise the dead. If this be 
conceded — and I do not see how Mr. Moz- 
ley can avoid the conclusion — it destroys 
the necessity of inferring Christ's divinity 
from His miracles. He, it may be con- 
tended, antedated the humanity of the 
future, as a mighty tidal-wave leaves, high 
upon the beach, a mark which, bye-and- 
bye, becomes the general level of the 
ocean.'' [Fragments, etc., p. 55.) 

I say, Brethren, I could not help an ex- 
pression of surprise when I read this. Not 
because I entertained doubts as to the 
correctness of the general line of thought 
here pursued. For I do not. On the con- 
trary, I have long contended for something 
very much of the same kind. But my sur- 
prise arose from the fact that, in making 
this admission. Professor Tyndall did not 
observe that he was virtually giving up the 
entire question which, as a Scientist, he 
had sought to raise on the Bible doctrine 
of Miracles and Special Providences ! For, 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 6/ 

if in the humanity of Jesus was lodged the 
power of acting on Nature from without — 
as, for example, in giving sight to the 
blind, and in raising the dead — then, I 
submit, the entire question must be given up 
by him ! It seems to me that the distin- 
guished Scientist has unwittingly cut off the 
branch on which he was standing. You 
may speak of that humanity as '' a mighty 
tidal-wave,'' or however else you may 
choose to speak of it. It does not matter. 
It cannot turn aside the logical consequence 
of that admission. The broad fact remains 
— here, in the humanity of Jesus, was a 
power of control above the ordinary pro- 
cesses of Nature! And I cannot help 
asserting that, in making this admission, 
the entire question is given up. Will the 
laws of Nature be less immutable to " the 
humanity of the future '' than they are now? 
And if, in that humanity, as antedated by 
Him, this power of control is to be lodged, 
is not the stronghold of scientific objection 
virtually abandoned ? For, by the suppo- 
sition of the eminent Lecturer, Man, in the 
future, is to be what Man in Jesus was ! 

E 



68 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

And the question is not now — indeed it 
never has been — WJio wrought these 
miracles ? It is simply, Is there power to 
work them at all ? 

And here let me pause for a moment, to 
say, that in conceding that the miracles of 
Christ do not necessarily prove His divinity, 
I am making no unwise admission. I think 
it most unfortunate that that position was 
ever taken ; and the sooner it is abandoned, 
the better. The Divinity of Christ is a 
grand, living, life-giving and central truth. 
It has its own most abundant and irrefu- 
table proof; and must not be allowed even 
to appear to rest on a foundation too narrow 
to meet its dimensions, and too weak to 
sustain it. 

And now, returning from this digression, 
I understand that the power to which I 
have just referred, is part of the grant of 
dominion first given to man. And is it 
not in the line of this thought, that the 
Master says, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
he that believeth on Me, the works that I do 
shall he do also ; and greater works than 
these shall he do " ? {John xiv. 12.) 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 69 

Faith in the Son of God, therefore, is one 
of the '' powers of the world to come ;" one 
of the principles of the government of the 
earth in its regeneration. But, clearly, it 
is a power outside of and above what we 
call Nature now ; a power to which, indeed, 
Nature will be subject ; and which can, 
therefore, work its results through the very 
laws which are now supposed to be inde- 
pendent of it, if not in opposition to it! 
And when it takes the position, when it 
gains the place God meant it for ; Man — 
redeemed Man — will move through the 
material Universe, exercising dominion of 
which we see, here and now, only faint 
intimations ! Not for the sake of dominion, 
but for the attainment of the glorious ends 
which God had in view at the first ! God's 
purpose in creation will be attained by 
Man, restored to his place through the re- 
demption that is in Jesus Christ ! 

Now, it happens, that fourteen years 
ago, in discussing this question of the do- 
minion lost in the First Man and to be 
restored in the Second, I wrote as follows : 
" There is to be a day when man will be re- 



^0 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

invested, through the work of the Second 
Adam, with all the powers originally con- 
ferred by his Creator. The dominion lost 
in Adam will be restored in Jesus. The 
nature, crowned as monarch in creation, 
shall receive a brighter crown in redemp- 
tion. Man, redeemed man, will rise to a 
glorious headship over all the works of 
God. He shall walk forth as king over a 
redeemed and regenerated earth. The 
visible creation shall be in peace and per- 
fection around him. The invisible creation 
— the special domain of the higher phi- 
losophy — shall lay bare its secrets before 
him ; and the slow attainments which cen- 
turies of accumulated labor now enable 
him to make, shall yield themselves up to 
his will. I read the pledge and the 
proof of this in the sinless humanity of 
Jesus! In Him we are to read xh^ proof 
of all that Man was designed to beT [Led, 
on Daniel, p. 175.) 

Now, I know that all this is no proof; 
but it comes up so fully to the measure of 
the theme in hand, that I could not resist 
the temptation to quote the passage. Be- 



TO NATURE' S G OD, Jl 

sides, it shows conclusively, I think, that 
whatever of truth there is in the idea before 
us, is a Bible truth, and must be accredited 
to its legitimate source. 

I stand up, then, on the basis of the Text. 
I claim that Man was invested with dominion 
over the works of God ; that he lost it ; 
that, in Jesus, Man's Restorer from sin, he 
shall regain his forfeited inheritance. That 
Science wins, by slow degrees and ceaseless 
toil, some bright intimations of all this, but 
that the restoration, the full and complete 
bringing back to the first type, is found in 
Jesus alone ! Therefore, I conclude, 

I. That the God of Nature is the God of 
the Bible. He who works the works of the 
one, speaks the words, and reveals the 
truths, and kindles the hopes of the other. 
There is no discord, no opposition between 
the two. Nothing but harmony all through ! 

II. That Man, as a Supernatural Being, 
endowed with power over the works of 
God, reminds us of what he was at first, 
and what he will be again. The proof of 
it all is in the humanity of Jesus, the Second 
Man, the Lord from Heaven ! 



72 NATURE'S TESTIMONY. 

III. That in ye sits Christ our lost Man- 
hood will be restored. Not in the achieve- 
ments of Science; not as the triumphs of 
advanced CiviHzation ; but in yesus Christ 
alone shall we regain it. Man, through 
Him, will be again what he was at first ; 
with the added glory, that Sin can disturb 
him no more. The reins of government 
will be in his hand ; the crown of royalty on 
his brow ; and, in perfect harmony with all 
the will of God, he will be again '' the image 
and likeness '' of God moving on the earth. 
Who, then, can restrain the joyous excla- 
mation of the Psalmist, '' His Name shall 
endure forever ; His Name shall be con- 
tinued as long as the Sun ; and men shall 
be blessed in Him ; all nations shall call 
Him blessed. . . . And blessed be His 
glorious Name forever and ever ; and let 
the whole earth be filled zvith His glory ! 
Amen^ and Amen ! '' 





SERMON IV. 

PRAYER IN ITS RELATION TO NATURAL LAW. 

^^ If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, 
ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto 
you." — John xv. 7. 

^HERE is here, you observe, a 
remarkable qualification to this 
promise ; a striking condition on 
which it hinges. JThe promise is. Ye shall 
ask what ye zvill, a7td it shall be done unto 
yoit. The condition is, If ye abide in Me. 
In other words, If ye are in harmony with 
the Mind and Will of God, ye cannot ask 
without obtaining. 

And this opens the way to my Subject, 
to-night, i, e., Prayer in its relation to Natu- 
ral Law, 

The subject is so vast in itself; it soars 
so high, and reaches out so wide, that I 
7 73 



74 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

cannot but feel we are standing on holy 
ground in seeking to handle it. And the 
special aspect in which it comes before us 
to-night, requires so much power of thought 
to perceive it, and of illustration to make 
it plain, that I almost fear to enter upon it. 
And, 

I. What is Prayer? Popularly, Mont- 
gomery's well-known hymn affords a beau- 
tiful and satisfactory answer : 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed ; 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 

*^ Prayer is the burden of a sigh ; 
The falling of a tear ; 
The upward glancing of an eye. 
When none but God is near. 

^* Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try ; 
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach 
The majesty on high." 

And in none of his compositions has the 
author exhibited greater beauty of thought 
and expression, or moved with more royal 
power, than in this. 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 75 

But I desire to go beyond this. For, 
admirable as this definition is, it touches 
only one side of the subject. And my 
theme demands that it be surveyed in all 
its dimensions, i, e., in the Bible viezv of it. 
And this, you must confess, is something 
vastly broader and higher than the Hymn. 

It is no form of speech. Words cannot 
compass it. No marshaling of phrases can 
attain to it. The grandest petitions of our 
Liturgy may utterly fail to compass it. 
They are only ''forms of prayer,'' and can 
never be prayer until a living spirit has 
given them life by making them its own. 
They are but the tickings of the telegraph, 
as the fingers of the operator move the 
machine, v^hen no communication is sent 
along the line. 

" Prayer,'' said that accomplished scien- 
tist, and yet devout and childHke Christian, 
Hugh Miller, ''is so mighty an instrument 
that no one ever thoroughly mastered all 
its keys. They sweep along the infinite 
scale of man's wants and of God's good- 
ness." And in Scripture it is always taken 
for granted. It is not so much commanded 



76 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

as assumed. Hence, the Master says, 
''When ye pray," etc.; ''When thou pray- 
est, enter into thy closet." It is counted 
on, assumed, taken for granted, all through. 

I understand that the desire for prayer is 
an instinct of our nature. I say the desire 
for it ; the feeling which prompts to it. This 
is an instinct of our nature, and is, there- 
fore, universal. 

I beg you observe, I am not defining 
prayer. I am taking no account of the 
objects to which it may be addressed. I 
am not showing what it must be in order to 
be accepted. I am speaking only of the 
desire for prayer; the feeling that prompts 
to it. And that is universal. We find it 
everywhere. The Romanist, as he counts 
his beads ; the Pagan, as he performs his 
incantations before his idols ; the Fetish- 
worshiper, as he consults his charm ; and 
the Buddhist, as he turns his praying- wheel; 
are all examples of it. They all feel the 
pressure of the same want, the prompting 
of the same instinctive desire. They are 
all responding to one common necessity ; 
that, namely, of in some way entering into 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 7/ 

connection with the spiritual and unseen. 
And one of the saddest proofs of the blight 
and desolation of sin, is that an exercise so 
heavenly in its origin ; so grand in its design, 
and so transforming in its influence, should 
be brought down to such dwarfed and dis- 
torted proportions as this ! 

The question, then, returns upon us, 
What is Prayer ? It is the noblest exercise 
of the spirit of Man, as he yields to the 
leadings of the Spirit of God. Prayer? Oh, 
there is nothing nobler, nothing grander, 
nothing more elevating than this ! 

It takes in every distinctive power of the 
soul. '' God is Spirit,'' says the Master, 
''and they that worship Him must worship 
Him in spirit and in truth." The Under- 
standing must move in it. The Affections 
must engage in it. The Will must respond 
to it. The Understanding — the Affections 
— the Will ! Why, these define our endow- 
ment as spiritual beings ! They tread the 
circle of our powers ! And, so far as either 
is wanting in the exercise, the spirit is not 
in worship. It is not prayer in the light 
of the New Testament teaching. For with 



78 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

Jesus as our Teacher, we speedily learn 
that Prayer is the exercise of the spirit 
desiring to know and to do the will of God. 
11. And what are its Results ? Doubtless 
they are twofold : 

a. Subjective ; or confined within the pe- 
titioner. 

b. Objective ; or going out beyond him. 
Now, of the first of these, my subject 

does not call me to speak. I cannot pass 
them by, however, without saying that they 
belong to the daily and best-ascertained 
experiences of the Christian life. You know 
— I trust we very thoroughly know — how 
sweet and dew-like are the influences which 
come down on the spirit in prayer. How 
like the gentle rain upon the tender herb, 
the grace of God distils upon the soul. How 
it strengthens us in our weakness. How it 
calms us in our troubles. How it brings us 
light in our darkness, wisdom in our diffi- 
culties, peace in our sorrows, and every 
needed blessing. And this is the action — 
according to Bible teaching — not of man's 
spirit on itself, but of God's spirit on Man's. 
Yet this, as the gist of the matter in hand, 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 79 

is denied altogether. And whatever prayer 
can accompHsh, is accomplished, we are 
told, withht the spirit of the petitioner. And 
beyond this it cannot go. It lays no hold 
on God. It receives no influence from 
Him. It is an influence arising from and 
moving within the spirit of the petitioner. 

And directly in line with this, a writer in 
the Fortnightly Review — no less, indeed, 
than Francis Galton — in an article on the 
Efficacy of Prayer, says, " Nothing I have 
said negatives the fact that the mind may 
be relieved by the utterance of prayer. . . . 
There is a yearning of the heart, a crying 
for help, it knows not where, certainly from 
no source that it sees. Of a similar kind is 
the bitter cry of the hare, when the grey- 
hound is almost upon her. She abandons 
hope through her own efforts, and screams 
— but to whom ? It is a voice convulsively 
sent out into space ; whose utterance is a 
physical rehef." {Fort, Rev., Aug,, 1872, p. 

I35-) 

Now, it is hard to say whether indigna- 
tion at the atrocity of these sentiments ; or 
pity for the m.an who could utter them, 



80 NA r URE'S TES TIM ONY 

should have the upper hand. For has it 
come to this ? Have we been deceived all 
through ? Are all the declarations of the 
Word of God to be repudiated ? Are all 
the rich experiences of the past to be pro- 
nounced delusions ? Are we only talking 
into the air when we pray ? And was the 
Master Himself deceived? For He did 
think and teach that Prayer has a power 
outside of the petitioner; outside of the 
usual course of events. He did teach that 
through it man may gain a power of control 
over material things greater than we have 
yet seen ! Was He, too, a victim of delu- 
sion ? Is there 7io One in whom we can be- 
lieve ? Surely, it would be enough to be 
told that these teachings of our earlier 
years, hallowed with most sacred recollec- 
tions, were only cunningly devised fables. 
But to be asked to believe, in addition to 
all this, that Jesus Himself was a teacher 
of these delusions. Can you wonder if sur- 
prise deepens into indignant rebuke ? 

But I do not care to argue this question 
from this point. I prefer to change the 
line of defence. How comes it, then, that 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 8l 

Mr, Gallon — disciple, as he claims to be, 
of Nature — has committed himself to this 
view? I submit that his zeal has outrun 
his discretion. He seems to have forgotten 
two points exceedingly important for him 
to have remembered. They are, 

a. Every organ of the body, and every na- 
tive power or instinct of the mind, proves the 
existence of its appropriate object or sphere 
of action. I believe this is everywhere con- 
ceded. There is no exception to it. The 
reign of law demands it. There could be 
no order, no harmony, no correspondence 
of things, without it. Thus, the eye proves 
light. The eaf proves sound ; and every 
organ its own appropriate sphere of exer- 
cise. And so uniformly does this hold true, 
that, when this is wianting, the organ does not 
appear ^ — as in the case of the fishes in the 
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, which, living 
in the dark, are without eyes. 

So with every native power of mind, and 
every instinct of our nature. Somewhej^e, 
there is an object for it to rest on ; a fitting 
sphere for its exercise. And we count on 
this as a certain things on the principle of 



82 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

the order or harmony that obtains in all the 
works of God. 

Now, the desire for prayer — the feeling 
that prompts to it — is an instinct of our 
nature. Is it less so than that which guides 
the infant to its mother's breast ? In some 
form of manifestation, it exists everywhere. 
Reasoning, therefore, from the analogy of 
Nature alone, the conclusion is a sound 
one, that the presence of the universal 
desire pi^oves the existence of the Being who 
hears and answers prayer ! 

The next point I make here is, 
b. That Falsehood never works out results 
of Trnth, Brethren, you know — does not 
the world know — that many of the grandest 
characters of history were moulded and 
guided and impelled by a power gained in 
prayer ? They believed in a God who hears 
the cry of His children. To whom they 
might come with childlike confidence, under 
the pressure of every want. They believed 
that He was about their path; knowing 
them in every lot ; caring for them in every 
want ; loving them better than they could 
tell. Now, if this was a delusion ; if God 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 83 

does not hear ; if, when they prayed, it was 
an exercise of their spirit in and on itself; 
why, then they believed a falsehood ! And 
yet this falsehood worked out a truth and 
nobility and beauty of character that we 
cherish as the choicest treasures of history! 
Was ever idea more utterly unfounded? 
Can the stream rise higher than its source ? 
Can one thing- produce another unlike 
itself? Can Falsehood work out results of 
Truth? 

In the light of these principles, then, we 
see our way clearly enough to the conclu- 
sion, that there is a Being outside of Man, 
and higher and stronger than Man, to whom 
we can go in every need ; on whom we can 
lay hold ; and whose wisdom and strength 
can be made available to us in ways we 
know not of. 

Therefore, I argue, 

I. That the desire for prayer, as an instinct 
of our nature, proves the existence of One 
who hears and answers prayer. And, 

II. That the results of this belief in life 
and character, pi^ove the belief itself to be 
founded in truth. Do you see how sound 



84 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

reason permits an escape from these con- 
clusions ? 

I come now to consider, 

b. The Objective Results of Prayer; or 
those going outside of the petitioner. And 
especially of those results in relation to 
Natural Law. What are they ? And how 
far may we go in this direction ? 

Doubtless, the Bible contemplates such 
results. It asstimes them all throuzh ! 
Doubtless, the Master counts on them in 
His teaching. Therefore, speaking to His 
disciples about their escape from Jerusalem, 
He says, " And pray ye that your flight be 
not in the winter f Therefore, He taught 
that power to do certain great works 
'' goeth not forth but by prayer diXid fasting.'' 
Therefore, we are taught that '' the heavens 
gave rain, and the earth brought forth 
fruit,'' in answer to Elijah's prayer. There- 
fore, we are assured that '' the prayer of 
faith shall save the sick!' 

And there is nowhere even the slightest 
intimation that these things involved a 
departure from the established operations 
of Nature. Nowhere a hint that more of 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 85 

power was required in their accomplish- 
ment. They are spoken of as quietly, as 
calmly, and as much matters of course, as 
the rising of the sun, or the formation of 
the dew. They are in li7te with the power 
of prayer, in the Bible conception of it. 
And if the prophets of old*; if Jesus and 
His Apostles were mistaken about this ; I 
'pray you tell me what assurance we have 
that they were not mistaken all through ? 
The foundation of our confidence would be 
gone, if they fail us in matters as important 
as these. We need, therefore, to enlarge 
our idea of prayer up to the Scripture con- 
ception of it. 

Lord Kames — as quoted by Dr. Combe, 
in The Constitution of Man, p. 375 — says, 
"The Being that made the world, governs it 
by laws that are inflexible, because they are 
the best. And to imagine that He can be 
moved by prayers, oblations or sacrifices, 
to vary His plan of government, is an im- 
pious thought, degrading the Deity to a 
level with ourselves.'' And, as far as I have 
read, this seems to be quite a favorite idea 



86 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

of many who, on other subjects, are clear 
and correct thinkers. 

'* Vary His plaji of government ! '' Why, 
who ever claimed this as the province of 
prayer ? Who ever dreamed of such a 
thing ? Was it ever heard that we should 
pray for July heat in December ? If you 
decline to sowyour seed, will prayer secure 
you a harvest all the same? If you pray 
against pestilence, and neglect your sanitary 
arrangements, will you be protected ? Who 
ever soberly held such ideas as these ? Is 
it not time our teachers of Science should 
come to comprehend that prayer operates 
through law, and not against it ? Is it not 
time for them to understand the Bible doc- 
trine that prayer is provided for in the con- 
stitution of the world of Nature; has a place 
among its primal laws, and works harmoni- 
ously with them ? 

We hear, indeed, a great deal said about 
the Sermon on the Mount, in connection 
with this theme. It is appealed to, as if its 
teaching rebuked those who cannot help 
believing there is space enough in the 
operations of Nature for prayer to receive 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 87 

answer through the laws that God has 
appointed for their governance. Prof. 
Tyndall, indeed, makes a point here, and 
evidently regards it as a good one. He 
says : 

" Those, therefore, who believe that the 
miraculous is still active in Nature, may, 
with perfect consistency, join in our pe- 
riodic prayers for fair weather and rain ; 
while those who hold that the age of 
miracles is past, will refuse to join in such 
petitions. And if these latter wish to fall 
back upon such a justification, they may 
fairly urge that the latest conclusions of 
science are in perfect accordance with the 
doctrine of the Master Himself, which 
manifestly was that the distribution of 
natural phenomena is not affected by moral 
or religious causes. /He maketh His sun 
to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.' " 
— {^Prayer and Nat, Law, p. 39.) 

But is Prof. Tyndall prepared to go as 
far as this Text goes ? For, clearly, the 
Master assumes the presence of a personal 
God in the operations referred to. If " He 



88 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

maketh His sun to rise;" ''If W^ sendeth 
rain ; " why, clearly, He sits above these 
processes, and holds them to His will ! I 
am not for a moment forgetting that they 
are governed by law. The point I make 
is, that the Master speaks not of the laius, 
but of the God zuko rules throuo-h them — 
so that Gody and not Law, shall be the power 
producing the processes referred to. It 
may, therefore, very well come to pass that 
" prayer for fair weather and for rain,'' 
may be answered ; while yet '' the miracu- 
lous " shall have no place in the operation 
at all. Let it be crranted at once, '' that 
the distribution of natural phenomena is 
not affected by moral or religious causes," 
— I would not like to ^2.y,'may not be 
affected — but, as the general rule, zi" not. 
These phenomena are part of the general 
scheme of His Providence; royal benefac- 
tions to His oft-times thankless children. 
Still, I put it to you, Brethren, that with 
the Master's teachings to guide us here ; 
remembering that a personal God sits 
above these processes ; it is not hard to 
see that they may assume the form of the 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 89 

general blessing or of the exceptional re- 
buke ? It works no denial, either of the 
laws concerned, or of the God whose will 
those laws express, to insist on this. And 
while Science and Scripture both acknowl- 
edge the occurrence of the fact. Scripture 
alone teaches that it may have exactly this 
explanation. Therefore, it is written, 
'* When heaven is shut up, and there is no 
rain, because they have sinned ! '' 

I know, of course, it is not for you or for 
me to assign this reason, in a given case. 
God alone is competent to pronounce on 
this. But, beyond all doubt, the Scriptures 
do recognize this as one cause underlying 
the occurrence of drought. The God who 
sends the rain, may withhold it. And, 
though in a different form, the withholding 
may prove as real a blessing as the sending, 
''For all things serve Him I " 

You have a friend at sea! May you, 
intelligently, pray for his preservation ? 
May you ask others to do so too ? Why, 
if the processes of the material universe 
are subject to the action of natural laws, 
and if there is nothing beside those laws, 



90 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

then, of course, the idea is simply absurd! 
For, can you pray to a law ? Can it hear 
you ? Can a law change its course ? But 
if there is more than law ; if there is God, 
whose will is on the secret springs of the 
forces by which every atmospheric disturb- 
ance is brought about and ended ; then, 
indeed, the case becomes an exceedingly 
different one. And is not this just the 
point whence all the trouble comes ? Do 
not all these so-called scientific objections 
spring from the conclusion that Nature is 
nothing but a system of laws ? That, prac- 
tically, God has nothing to do with it? 
That its workings are the workings of law 
alone, and leave no place for a Personal 
Will ? For the moment we take the Mas- 
ter's position, all difficulty — and, let me 
say, all chance of difficulty — disappears. 
God rules — rules through law — but still 
God rules ! * Man deals with results ; God 

* Note. ^^ It is curious how the language of the 
great Seers of the Old Testament corresponds with 
this idea. They uniformly ascribe all the operations 
of Nature — the greatest and the smallest — to the 
working of Divine Power. But they never revolt — 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 9I 

deals with the invisible forces that produce 
them. Here He sits supreme ! For what 
are all the elementary forces of Nature but 
modes of action of the Divine Will ? And, 
ruling here, what is simpler ; what is more 
philosophical ; than the conclusion that it is 
His hand that touches the spring- of these 
invisible forces — into whose immediate 
presence we can never come — and sends 
down results in the phenomena with which 
Science has to do ? 

And precisely on this ground do the 
Scriptures place this matter of prayer, in 
reference to its objective results. Because 
God is in the secret place of power ; the 
beginning of a given succession of acts, 
coming down to us in phenomena subject 
to law, may be just the action of the Divine 

as so many do in these weaker days — from the idea 
of this Power working by wisdotn and knowledge in 
the use of means ; nor, in this point of view, do they 
ever separate between the work of the First creation 
and the work that is going on daily in the existing 
world. Exactly the same language is applied to the 
rarest exertions of power, and to the gentlest and most 
constant of all natural operations.'* — Reign of Law\ 
pp. 127-8. 



92 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

Will at that becrinnino^. Trace back the 
chain of results, link by link, in any natural 
operation, and you come to the ultimate 
cause or force. Here God reigns ! Here 
He acts, in the production of results that 
flow to us, every one, through the laws that 
He has ordained for them ! And beauti- 
fully in accordance with this view — bringing 
a Personal God and the Reign of Law 
too-ether — is the Bible account of the 
storm, and the calm in which it ends : 

^^They who go down to the sea in ships, that do 
business in great waters ; 

'' These see the works of the Lord and His wonders 
in the deep ; 

'' For, He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, 
which lifteth up the waves thereof; 

''They mount up to the heavens; they go down 
again to the depths ; their soul is melted because of 
trouble. 

'' They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken 
man, and are at their wits' end. 

'' Then they cry tmto the Lord in their ti'ouhle ; and 
He bringeth the7?i out of their distresses, 

"He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves 
thereof are still." — Fs. cvii., 23-30. 

Is there any mistaking this ? It is God 



TO NATUJ^E' S G OD. 93 

who does these things — does them, of 
course, through the laws of the storm — 
but still God does them. They all wait His 
will. All obey His command. And the 
relief from danger is just as much His act. 
''He bringeth them out of their distresses." 
''He maketh the storm a calm." 

And how does relief come ? " Then they 
cried wito the Lord, and He heard them." 
Is not this Prayer in its relation to Natural 
Law? But no marvel is made of it. No 
wonder is expressed. The stilling of the 
storm is no greater exercise of power than 
the raising of it. It is no more a miracle. 
God saves, not against law, but throtigh 
law. Not by violating His own ordinances, 
but by summoning dormant forces into 
action, and working by means of His ordi- 
nances ! And I cannot but feel, Brethren, 
that we have here the secret — I think the 
whole secret — of this much-debated ques- 
tion. The Bible puts God and His laws 
together. He rules, but rules through 
them ; and that in such a way, that while 
the operation is theirs, the power is always 
His, 



94 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

I am not ashamed, therefore, to pray for 
my friend at sea. Rather, my best reason 
approves it. All the difficulty disappears, 
when I remember the Master's doctrine, 
that God '' se7ideth the rain," that yet comes 
in perfect obedience to natural laws. He 
can answer my prayer in ways that I know 
not of. His power is on the clouds. The 
winds tell of it. And it so pervades the 
atmosphere, that the gentle breathing of a 
summer's eve, and the angry roar of the 
tempest, alike obey His will. All the forces 
of the storm are those that He appoints, 
and the calm comes at His command. And 
thus, in the teachings of Jesus, the highest 
philosophy joins hands with a childlike 
faith in Him who sends '' lightnings, that 
they may go and say unto thee, Here we 
are ! " 

And so when sickness is on me, or those 
who are dear to me feel its power. I am 
not left alone to the law of the case. For 
who can trace disease back to its real 
cause ; or restoration from it, up to where 
the healingr influence be^-ins ? There is the 
point at which prayer, accordin-g to the will 



TO NATURE'S GOD, 9$ 

of God, finds its place of power. And 
gaining that, the answer of the Word is 
'' The pi^ayer of faith shall save the sick ! " 

And so with every special blessing. And 
the summing up of the whole is. That the 
power sought in Prayer is provided for ; 
has a place, in the constitution of N'atzcre, 

I find an illustration of this, even in the 
domain of Mechanical Philosophy. I hold 
in my hand a book entitled The Westing- 
House Air-Brake Company, It contains a 
full account of the latest, simplest and most 
thoroughly philosophical mode of stopping 
a train of cars moving at full speed. As 
the name indicates, the brake is an air- 
brake. The force that applies it to the 
wheels is air. And the peculiar excellence 
of the invention — that which makes it so 
fit an illustration of my theme — is, that 
the power which stops the train, is provided 
in the running of the train I The engineer 
has it all under his control. The power of 
stopping the train is not a power on the 
outside. It does not interfere with the law 
of the engine. It is part of the working 
of the engine ; and exists by virtue of the 



96 NATURE'S TESTIMONY 

construction of the encrine. The builder 
had it in his mind from the first. 

Is it not so with the subject before us ? 
In building this great world, its '' Builder 
and Maker " has provided for all contin- 
gencies that may arise ; all necessities that 
may exist ; and for whatever new combina- 
tions of events and forces may require at 
His hands. So He has stored away ; 
concealed among the hidden things of His 
wisdom and power ; a reserve of forces 
to be called into service — like the air 
which the workinor of the encrine bringrs 
into its chamber — whenever it may seem 
best in His sight. Therefore, when Jesus 
wrought His great works, He was doing 
very much what the engineer is when he 
stops the train, i. e., arresting or control- 
ling the working of one lazu by the applica- 
tion of another. So, in His prayer, before 
the greatest of His works. He was only 
preparing to move on the realm of Death 
with the controlling power of the Life that 
was in the Father and Himself. So, too, in 
the promise of the Text. When we come 
to know the meaning of. If ye abide in Me, 



TO NATURE'S GOD. 97 

we shall find that harmony with the Mind 
and Will of God will let us into the secret 
place of power over His works. But all 
the powers that He exercised ; all that He 
promises to His people, in the Coming 
Age, are provided for, have a place in the 
organic laws of the material universe ! 

And now. Brethren, I have striven to 
lead you over a little section of this great 
field of thought. How broad it is ! How 
boundless in the riches it contains ! And 
as we walk about the Zion of the Word of 
God, as we tell the towers and mark the 
bulwarks thereof, does not every new inves- 
tigation suggest the thought. How strong 
its foundations are ? And how directly 
every line of Truth leads us up to 
Jesus, whose Spirit is " the inspiration of 
that Word ! All roads in the domain of 
His Universe lead up to Him. He is in 
the centre. He is ''Alpha and Omega ; the 
Beginning and the Ending ; the First and 
the Last ! '' And blessed is he whose trust 
is stayed on Him ! Blessed is he who has 
made experience of His Faithfulness, His 
Truth, His Love ! 



6t^i 









Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



M; 



,^'f^ARy OP CONGRESS 




013 654 339 8 












XW'fM3. 



%K; ■'. :■■ y< '^■ 









^:-.^ 









